Electronic products have become an integral part of our daily lives. Many electronic products with complex integrated circuits are commonly used sometimes without an end user even realizing that there is underlying electronic technology. Even for products that include obvious electronic technology such as cell phones, music players, televisions, or automobiles, the technology itself is not well understood.
With virtually all electronic products, there has been a consistent if not increasing demand for new features, higher speed, more data, improved portability, etc. These demands have driven the development of electronic technology including reducing size, improving utility, or increasing performance of the integrated circuit devices contained within an ever-increasing range of electronic products.
There has been constant pressure within the semiconductor industry to reduce dimensional footprints as well as increase quality, reliability, and performance fueled by consumer demands for smaller, higher quality electronic products that operate faster, with more information, as well as more reliably under broader and sometimes more severe operating conditions and environments.
The integrated circuits are commonly assembled into integrated circuit packages for protection and interconnection to other integrated circuits, integrated circuit packages, printed circuit boards, other subsystems, or systems. The development of integrated circuit packages requires not only compatibility with a wide range of integrated circuits but must also provide integration or combinations not available in a single integrated circuit device.
Many electronic products have taken advantage of including multiple integrated circuit devices or integrated circuit packages within a stacked integrated circuit package. The stacked integrated circuit package provides overall protection from operating conditions, intraconnection between components, and interconnection to a next level subsystem. Using known good components can reduce defects lowering overall costs of the integrated circuit package.
While stacking integrated circuits within integrated circuit packages has improved dimensional densities and footprints it has not been without problems. Integrated circuit and integrated circuit package component dimensions have been limited and restricted by manufacturing methods and equipment. Smaller and more varied components are very susceptible to damage during processing.
Attempts to combine a variety of integrated circuit devices have significantly affected manufacturing costs or working product yields. Damage or often time's breakage can render inoperable a component such as a substrate, interposer, or integrated circuit. The damage or breakage typically occurs during processing when some of the components are being assembled or connected.
Other attempts to prevent damage have included support features between components with significant spaces between them. These configurations describe at least one, or one or more supports but actually depict multiple supports particularly on opposite ends of a component to protect other components mounted centrally. These attempts significantly limit the range of devices that can be combined in a package.
The combinations have been limited to a subset of a broad spectrum of integrated circuit types as well as sizes. Combining these different integrated circuits has also been limited by the wide variety of interconnections, specifications, or interactions resulting in significant limitations and challenges for small, cost-effective packaging.
Despite the advantages of recent developments in integrated circuit and integrated circuit package manufacturing, there is a continuing need for improving integrated circuit device and integrated circuit package connectivity and stacking to provide improved dimensional size of available space and as well as structural integrity, manufacturing yield, and product reliability.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit package system to provide improved package-in-package stacking integration. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems.
Additionally, the need to save costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.